Certain Symmetry Read Free

by chance I should arrive during daylight and
find the door locked." He gestured, showing her the lowering sun.
"It is, I see, still daylight. I find the door--alas!--is locked.
Bring the basket."
    He stepped up to the door, key at ready.
Moonhawk bent and picked up the care basket, settling it over her
arm. A sharp snap sounded, Lute pushed the door open and stepped
into the house beyond, the cat walking at his knee.
    With a deep sense of foreboding, Moonhawk
followed.
    * * *
    "VEVERAIN?" LUTE'S VOICE lacked its usual
ringing vitality, as if the room's dimness was heavy enough to
muffle sound. "Veverain, it's Lute!"
    Moonhawk stood by the door, letting her eyes
adjust; slowly, she picked out a table, benches, the hulking mass
of a cold cookstove.
    "Let us shed some light on the situation,"
Lute said. A blot of darkness in the kitchen's twilight, he moved
surely across the room. There was a clatter as he slid back the
lock bars and threw the shutters wide, admitting the day's last
glimmer of sun.
    Details sprang into being. Dusty pots hung
neatly above the cold stove; spice bundles dangled from the low
eaves; pottery was stacked, orderly and cobwebbed, on whitewashed
shelves. The table was dyanwood, scrubbed white; the work surfaces
were tiled, the glaze dull with dust.
    "Well." Face grim, Lute shed cloak and bag,
and dropped them on the table. Crossing the room, he pulled a lamp
from its shelf and carried it and a pottery jug to a work
table.
    Moonhawk walked slowly forward. Despite the
light from the windows, the room seemed--foggy. It was also
cold--bone-chilling, heart-stopping cold. She wondered that Lute
had put aside his cloak.
    She set the care basket on the table and
pulled her own cloak tighter about her. Lute had filled the lamp
and was trimming the wick with his silver knife. Moonhawk shivered,
and recalled the neat stack of wood on the porch, hard by the
door.
    "I'll start the stove," she said to Lute's
back. He looked 'round abstractedly.
    "Yes. Thank you."
    "No," said another voice, from the back of
the room. "I will thank you both to leave."
    Moonhawk spun. Lute calmly finished with the
wick and lit it with a snap of his fingers, before he, too, turned
to face his hostess.
    "Veverain, have I changed so much in one
year's travel? It's Lute."
    "Perhaps you have not changed," the woman in
the faded houserobe said, with a lack of emotion that raised the
fine hairs along the back of Moonhawk's neck, "but all else has.
Rowan is dead."
    "Yes. I met Oreli in the High Street." Lute
went forward, hands outstretched. "I loved him, too, Veverain."
    She stared at him, stonily, and neither
moved to meet him, nor lifted her hands to receive his. Lute
stopped, hands slowly dropping to his sides.
    "Leave me," the woman said again, and it
seemed to Moonhawk that her voice carried an edge this time, as if
her stoniness covered an emotion too wild to be confined for
long.
    Perhaps Lute heard it, too, or perhaps his
skill brought him more subtle information. In any wise, he did not
leave, but stood, hands spread wide, and voice aggrieved.
    "Leave? Without even a cup of tea to warm
me? You yourself said that I should never want for at least that of
you. The thought of taking a cup of tea at your table has been all
that has made the last day's walking bearable!"
    "Have you not understood?"
And the untamed grief was plain to the ear, now. "I say to you
that Rowan is dead !"
    "Rowan is dead," Lute repeated gently. "He
is beyond the comforts of tea and the love of friends. We,
however--" He gestured 'round the room, a simple encircling, devoid
of stage flourish, and Moonhawk was absurdly relieved to find
herself included--"are not."
    There was a long moment of silence.
    "Tea," Veverain said, and her voice was
stone once more. "Very well."
    "I'll start the stove," Moonhawk said for
the second time, and went out to fetch an armload of wood.
    When she came back to the kitchen, some
minutes later, Veverain was in Lute's arms, sobbing